Condor’s car is in the driveway, and the lights are on. For a second I debate going to knock on his door to apologize—but for what? And I can’t forget the way his face hardened into anger, and the sudden leap of terror in my chest.

A jump rope is coiled on the front stoop, and for some reason it fills me with dread. As if Hannah might have been spirited away from the middle of her game.

Then Condor passes in front of the kitchen window and I turn away quickly, realizing I’ve been staring.

Inside, I punch on the air conditioner and listen to it grind to life in the dark.

Round trip, the ride to Indianapolis has taken three hours, not counting the fifteen or so minutes I spent chatting up the goateed guy. The bill from Prestige is close to two hundred and fifty dollars—nearly triple my weekly expense allowance.

And every single dollar worth it.

I pull out the card from Goatee and run a search for Byron Grafton.

His LinkedIn profile lists him as a consultant and his Facebook profile mentions investment management and real estate. Nowhere is he listed as associated with Clean Solutions, or Optimal, or waste.

But it’s the picture that nearly punches my heart through my chest.

Byron Grafton is curly-haired, and in the handful of photos Google kicks back, dressed in the same kind of cheap, flashy suit that attracted my attention to the photograph I saw back in Brent’s house. And now I remember—Brent told me he had a cousin, Byron, who had a buddy at Optimal that took him under his wing.

I land on a picture of Byron in the University of Indiana newspaper. Long out of college, he’s nonetheless dressed in school colors, and tailgating outside of his alma mater with a bunch of other aging frat boys. Ten to fifteen pounds overweight, thinning hair, paunchy with money, they might all be identical twins.

Except that one of them, I recognize.

I punch in Joe’s number, forgetting all about our fight this morning, and curse when it goes straight to voicemail.

“Call me back,” I say. “I think I have something.”

My phone rings almost immediately after I’ve hung up, and I pick it up without checking the number.

“Hope I’m not disturbing date night,” I say.

There’s a pause.

“Is this Abby Williams?” The caller has the gravelly drawl of a pack-a-day smoker.

I straighten up instinctively, I snap my laptop shut—as if someone might be looking at me through the windows. “You got her. Who’s this?”

“This is Sheriff Kahn. I spoke to a Joe Pabon this morning about the fire. He listed you as the point of contact.” Sheriff Kahn has been around since I was a little kid. Big-ass mustache straight from the seventies, yellow fingernails, Chiclet teeth. Kahn is the kind of person you’d expect to see wearing cowboy boots and spurs, but instead, every day that I recall, he wore a spotless pair of white high-top Nike sneakers. “I wanted to let you know we’ve made an arrest. Local kid. Been in trouble before. Made some threats against Gallagher last Halloween. I doubt he meant to do as much damage as he did, though. You know how kids are.”